A4 OS1.1 great feature: drum rack + poly synth at once

I would like to point out a feature/setup, which I think most A4 users will not be aware of: You can set up 1-2 MIDI keyboards so that some of the keys, say 2 octaves, trigger a drum rack and other keys, maybe other 2 octaves, let the A4 play up to 4-voice chords. The point I’d like to make is that you don’t need to switch between MIDI channels etc. but can have both available at once.

Design a multi map to trigger drum sounds. The process is described in the manual or in an “OS1.1 A4 tutorial” youtube video. The resulting drum rack MIDI mapping responds to the performance track. In my case, that’s MIDI channel 12, but you can set any channel in the MIDI settings.

Select a synth sound on the currently selected track. This track responds, for instance, to the auto track. In my case, that’s MIDI channel 11, but you can again choose any in the global settings.

On the MIDI keyboard, you can then play drums and a synth, and both are coming from the A4. I mean that’s GREAT!

EDIT: I used that setup in the recording posted in the following thread, but decided to open a new thread to highlight that genious feature:
http://www.elektronauts.com/t/resample-sample-crossfader-movement/3303/28412

So is your keyboard transmitting MIDI on all channels? Does the A4 automatically stop notes assigned to drums from triggering synth parts?

multimaps will always listen on the performance channel.
so your external keyboard will have to send to that channel.

for each multimap region you set up, you can then specify which internal channel it should trigger. default is auto, this means it will trigger the currently selected track.
but you can also choose any other channel according to your channel setup, e.g. by default 1-4 are the 4 synth track channels.

so you can setup your drum trigger map to play e.g. on track 4 by setting the channel to 4, and your chord map to play on the selected track (auto), or any other specific track(s).

Thanks @void. I’m clearer now.

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I’m interested now to know how this works work when recording from multi map, especially drum banks. Does it record your playing as sound locks on the chosen tracks? That would be amazing.

Maybe I’m doing something wrong but I’ve never been able to trigger a multi-map drum bank via external keyboard. on board only.

I guess you’re not using the performance MIDI channel. Go to your MIDI settings and have a look at the MIDI channel assigned to “performance”, then select this channel on your MIDI keyboard.

I guess you’re not using the performance MIDI channel. Go to your MIDI settings and have a look at the MIDI channel assigned to “performance”, then select this channel on your MIDI keyboard.[/quote]
Still no go.

In fact there isn’t even a way to enable a sound slot or increments when ‘external input’ is used in a Sound map. Kinds sucks drumming in beats with only the onboard keys, having to transpose all the time to get to all your drums sounds and whatnot.

I guess you’re not using the performance MIDI channel. Go to your MIDI settings and have a look at the MIDI channel assigned to “performance”, then select this channel on your MIDI keyboard.[/quote]
Still no go.

In fact there isn’t even a way to enable a sound slot or increments when ‘external input’ is used in a Sound map. Kinds sucks drumming in beats with only the onboard keys, having to transpose all the time to get to all your drums sounds and whatnot. [/quote]
Might be obvious but are you in the right octave?

EXT. TRIG is for sending notes to an external instrument from the A4.
INT. TRIG is the setting you were looking for :slight_smile:

Thanks void, that’s what I’ve realized. Wondering why that’s useful now. I’m assuming that it still can’t send sequenced trigs to external gear so I’m just not really understanding it.

yeah Moritz…this is great…building patterns in this way is soooo quick!!

just switching track then live-rec some hits then next to the other -plus- a synth…YeAAAhh|